Smash Up: Cease and Desist Rules
Smash Up: Cease and Desist Rules
AEG flavor: Cease and Desist is the set that is “TOTALLY not anything at all like some awesome movies and TV shows.” It contains Astroknights, Changerbots, Ignobles, and Star Roamers.
Factions in this set
- Astroknights
- Changerbots
- Ignobles
- Star Roamers
Core Smash Up rules
Each player combines two different 20-card factions into a 40-card deck. Draw five cards, put one base per player plus one extra into play, and take turns resolving start-of-turn abilities, playing up to one minion and one action, scoring eligible bases, drawing two cards, and resolving end-of-turn abilities.
A card is played only when a rule or ability says to play it. Moving, placing, returning, transferring, or taking control of a card is not the same as playing it. This distinction matters throughout Cease and Desist.
Faction notes and official clarifications
Astroknights
Astroknights repeatedly use actions that directly boost or protect individual minions, converting those targeted effects into additional power and tactical flexibility.
Alien Guru: Its trigger refers to an action that directly targets a card already in play. If one action directly increases the power of several minions, choose only one of those affected minions to receive the additional +1 power counter from Alien Guru.
Space Prince and Walking Carpet: Use the same “directly increases power” interpretation as Alien Guru.
Scoundrel: Its talent may be used even when Scoundrel is your only minion at that base.
Changerbots
Changerbots switch modes by gaining and losing abilities, and many of their interactions depend on the distinction between an ability granted to a minion and an ability that remains on an attached action.
Bruiser: After its talent removes its abilities, it also loses abilities that attached actions grant directly to the minion. It does not erase independent benefits produced by the attached action's own ability. Abilities granted to Bruiser later in the turn are not retroactively removed.
The Touch: Use the same distinction between an ability granted to the minion and the attached action's own ability.
Solarshout: Once its -2 power effect has triggered, that reduction continues for its stated duration even if Solarshout later loses the ability that created it.
Form Mergacon: Its effect applies to minions that are present when the card resolves and does not automatically affect minions played afterward.
Mergacon: AEG later added Mergacon as an optional Changerbot Titan. Treat it as a Titan under the current comprehensive rules; it is not shuffled into the faction deck.
Ignobles
Ignobles deliberately give opponents control of their own minions and then profit from the betrayal. Ownership and control are therefore separate concepts: the card still belongs to its original owner even while another player controls it.
Activate the Spy: It can target a minion that originally came from your deck even if you no longer control that minion.
Banner Call, Foot of the King, and Inevitable Betrayal: Apply the same ownership-versus-control rule when they refer to your minions that another player currently controls.
Betrothed: Its ability functions regardless of how another player gained control of it, and the effect continues to apply if Betrothed later moves to a different base.
The Hill that Strolls: AEG later added this as an optional Ignobles Titan; keep it outside the deck and follow the current Titan rules.
Star Roamers
Star Roamers specialize in returning minions to hands, teleporting, substitution, and redirecting effects. They create some of the set's most detailed timing rulings.
Ensign: Ensign may substitute itself for an eligible effect aimed at another minion, including appropriate Special and Ongoing effects that are being generated, but it cannot take over an effect that has already resolved or is merely sitting in play. It can absorb more than one compatible part of an effect when that makes sense, but a single destruction cannot be duplicated unless the card is somehow immune to that destruction. It may also accept an action that would otherwise be played on another minion. Ensign can substitute even if Ensign does not satisfy the original target's descriptive prerequisites once the effect is redirected to it. Two Ensigns cannot both steal the exact same effect from a third minion.
Science Officer: You may return a minion you control but do not own. Because the card is being returned, it ultimately goes where the ownership rules require, but you still resolve the rest of Science Officer's ability.
Ship's Engineer: Its follow-up ability does not trigger when you return a minion you control but do not own if that minion does not actually enter your hand.
Teleport Overflow: You may return a minion you control but do not own and still resolve the remaining effect. The minions revealed by the effect must share a name with one another; they do not necessarily need to share the returned minion's name unless the card text separately says so.
Whiplash Maneuver: Use the same ownership/hand rule as Ship's Engineer.
Weird New Worlds: Once this permanently increases the number of bases in play, that increased number remains even if Weird New Worlds itself later leaves play before another base scores.
Current official errata
AEG's current comprehensive rules wiki supersedes older printed text. The wiki also identifies later errata and optional Titans, so use its card wording when a physical card and the online entry differ.
Accessibility play notes
Whenever control changes, announce both the owner and the current controller of the minion. For Star Roamer effects, explicitly state the original target, whether Ensign is substituting, and the final target before resolving the effect. When Changerbot abilities are canceled or restored, announce exactly which abilities disappear and which attached-action abilities remain. Keep +1 power counters in a consistent tactile location and announce the total current power after counters or temporary effects change it.